Marguerite Clark, The Girl That is Different (1915) 🇺🇸

Motion Picture Magazine,
175 Duffield Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.

My Dear Miss Clark — As a very great favor, will you write me a letter containing therein the story of your life? I am in a quandary, as I am detailed to interview you for a chat, and a personal talk is impossible. I shall appreciate all the egotism and vainglory that you can cram into your pages.

Thanking you deeply both in behalf of myself and an eager public, believe me,

Very sincerely yours,
Gladys Hall, Associate Editor.

—

My Dear Miss Hall — I am afraid this letter will have to sound like the letter of an egotist, but one can hardly comply with your request for “The Story of My Life” without using a great many Fs.

I was not born, alas! for precedent, in the theatrical atmosphere, nor did I step from the branches of an established professional family-tree. I was the first and only one of the family who started out to seek her fortune in a profession where success or failure depends, to a very large extent, on your public, but I have been fortunate, because my public has been so very kind to me, and it has made me very happy.

I was born in Avondale, a suburb of Cincinnati, and I can, at least, claim birthdays with the Father of my Country, for I was born on the 22nd of February. I lost my father and mother while I was still needful of them, and I have always felt that our first American father belonged to me, for my very own, but I suppose I have lots of rivals in his paternity.

I am small; my height is four feet and weight about ninety-five pounds. My eyes are brown, also my hair, and I believe this will be enough to describe my looks to those who are kind enough to be interested in me. Oh, yes; I am neither married nor engaged.

Now as to what I have done. After my father and mother died I was left to the sole care of my sister, and as my father had lost a great deal of money before his death, my sister felt, in order to live as we had been accustomed to, that we must not use our little fortune, but must try and add to it. Therefore, as we were alone, the last two of the family, she thought it was best to prepare me for a career, so in the event of anything happening to her I could support myself.

Since a baby I had appeared in amateur theatricals and had met with considerable success. This, of course, suggested the idea of the stage, so we started from home to seek our fortune. We came East, where I expected to enter a dramatic school, but my sister was advised by the only two members of the profession whom she had ever met to let me go on and get practical experience at once. I did so, and after a few weeks in musical stock, and a few months under the management of Mr. George Lederer, I was engaged as ingénue-soubrette with DeWolf Hopper, and was featured with him in several musical productions. Then I went into dramatic work.

I played Peter Pan, Merely Mary Ann, and other plays in summer stock, and was rewarded by the Shubert Brothers giving me a delightful little play called The Wishing Ring, in which play they starred me.

I had never wanted to star, and when Mr. Shubert offered me a contract to star, after I opened with DeWolf Hopper, I became almost hysterical. I could not bear the thought of the responsibility — the feeling that I might look out on empty seats and it would be my fault. It was so much more comfortable just to be a feature with a star who had to bear all the burden!

I was never what is called stage-struck, and while I was anxious to succeed, and at the same time heartbroken if my work did not go well, still, applause did not stimulate me as it does most actresses. I would much rather have lived in the country and had a farm with chickens and lots of pets, but I do enjoy my work just as a man enjoys his business, also the money I make, for, after all, I am really working for my livelihood.

The first part I enjoyed playing was Peter Pan. The first time I played it I realized it was not the stage I did not care for, but the musical comedy, for I do love to play a good part in dramatic work!

After The Wishing Ring I appeared with the all-star revival of Jim the Penman. That was a wonderful cast, and such fun! There, Ernest Glendinning played my brother, and Mr. William A. Brady, seeing us together, selected us for husband and wife in Baby Mine, that wonderfully clever and funny farce, which met with such tremendous success.

Then I played a boy, Shakespeare Jarvis, in the spring star revival of Lights of London. Again we had such a good time it seemed a shame to take our salaries. However, all this time I was learning and getting ready for bigger things, for I was later engaged by Mr. Winthrop Ames to play in the Little Theater, the most artistic theater in New York City. I played Snow White, in a fairy play for children, every afternoon and Saturday morning, and at night I appeared in The Affairs of Anatole, making thirteen performances a week, so I worked pretty hard that winter, but it was interesting to play a little child in the afternoon, and a grown-up lady of the world at night.

Then I played Prunella in the loveliest production I have ever seen, and that I enjoyed. While in Prunella, an offer from the Famous Players Film Company came to me, and I signed with them at the end of the season, and, just to show how contrary is human nature, when Mr. Frohman [Charles Frohman] asked me if I would not like to give up the stage for two years, and devote all my time to pictures, I, who truly felt I had never cared for acting, cried out: “Oh, I could not give up my art!” I did not know then that Motion Pictures were an art — I have found out since.

I had expected to do only a few pictures, but, much to my surprise, my first one met with success. It is quite wonderful to find that in one day you have reached thousands and thousands of people who never heard of you before.

To think that the whole world is laughing and crying with you is a strange feeling, but I like it; it is wonderful.

In closing, however, I should like to add that there is no career in the world, not even the most brilliant success, either in pictures or on the stage, that could be half so enjoyable to me as a quiet home in the country, with my friends and my pets around me.

I am afraid I have bored you with this long epistle, but hoping you will be able to find some of it that may answer your purpose, I am, with all good wishes,

Most sincerely yours,
Marguerite Clark.

Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, July 1915